Walker Kicks off 'Working for Wisconsin Tour'

Governor Scott Walker joins Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt to talk with voters about the new 2 year state budget.
Image by NBC26

Video by nbc26.com

Walker Kicks off 'Working for Wisconsin Tour'

By NBC26 Staff/Associated Press. CREATED Jul 1, 2013

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Governor Scott Walker begins his state wide tour of promoting the new 2 year budget for the state.

Walker was at Titletown Brewery in Green Bay early Monday morning, to tell voters about the legislation he signed into law on Sunday.

The budget includes Walker's major priorities -- a $650 million income tax cut, rejection of federal Medicaid expansion and the expansion of private school vouchers statewide.

Most of Walker's vetoes to the $70 billion, two-year spending plan are technical.

But the governor did veto a provision Sunday in Pleasant Prairie that would have allowed bounty hunters in Wisconsin. They have not been permitted in the state since 1979.

Walker also vetoed a provision that would have kicked the independent Center for Investigative Journalism off of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and barred it from working with university professors. Walker says that's a matter for the UW System Board of Regents to decide.

State republicans are reportedly happy with the budget. Representative John Nygren, of Marinette, says he's not too worried about Walker's vetoes.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chris Larson says Republican Governor Scott Walker provided a "marginal amount of moderation to an extreme Tea Party budget" with some of the vetoes he made to the spending plan signed Sunday.

Larson says Walker's veto of a provision that would have allowed bounty hunters, or bail bondsmen, in Wisconsin for the first time since 1979 "may have eliminated the most obvious example of corruption in this budget." But Larson says there are other problems with the budget, including the lowest per pupil spending increase in 20 years.

The budget includes a $300 million spending increase for public schools, but Democrats say that doesn't even make up for all the cuts to public education in Walker's previous budget.

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